Road Trip
by DrawMeASheep
Summary: Post ep for Heartland. Team Charger makes its way back to DC.


Disclaimer: Don't own, hate lawsuits.

Spoilers: _Heartland_.

Summary: Team Normal Car heads back to DC. It's a long way.

* * *

"Perhaps if you had taken the correct exit we would be on the main road and there would be many places to eat lunch."

Tony narrowed his eyes as he glared at Ziva. "What main road? Every road is a freaking back road up here in no man's land."

"Then what was that two lane highway we were driving on forty-five minutes ago?"

"An aberration!" He floored the accelerator, only to have to back off it a second later when a sharp curve appeared. "Just look for a blue and red sign with a route number on it."

"According to the GPS…"

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel and shouted, "It doesn't even think we're on a road!"

"Whoa. Even I heard that!" He looked in the mirror as Abby yanked on the white cord that popped out her earbuds. "Where are we?"

McGee didn't even look up from his book. "Lost."

"How can we be lost?"

Ziva gloated, "Someone decided that he was not going to follow Gibbs or the GPS directions back to Washington."

"Like anyone could follow Gibbs in that…" Tony trailed off, remembering the moment Gibbs had handed him the keys to the Charger. For a split second, he'd been sure it was the other set. _Here, you take it, Tony. I'm sure NCIS owes you a car or two._ But no. "Let's just play the quiet game until we find the highway."

"No, I'm terrible at that!" Abby complained. "I always lose."

"What is the quiet game?"

"Oh, Ziva, it's this awful torture that parents and babysitters use to mess with little kids' minds and I just know you'll hate it as much as I do after thirty seconds, max."

"Next left," Ziva said.

Abby's head bumped Tony's surprisingly sore shoulder as she thrust it between the seats. "You'll hate it at the next left?"

"I am trying to tell Tony how to get back to a main road."

"Thank you, Zee-vah," he spat, making sure he wasn't going to elbow Abby in the head as he made the turn, "but I did see the sign."

"I win," McGee suddenly said. "What? Didn't you say something about the quiet game?"

"Yeah. Your prize is you get to keep your mouth shut for the rest of the trip, Probie." McGee shrugged in the rearview and went back to his book.

Ziva crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her shoulders into her seat. "Do not take your frustration out on McGee. It is not his fault you are…"

"_We_ are not lost." He saw the most welcome thing he'd seen all day as he crested a hill. "Pinch me, it's an on-ramp!" A moment later, he flinched hard enough to swerve into the other lane, not that it mattered. "Ziva! Just an expression!"

"We are in a car. There is no need to yell!"

"Sorry!" he shouted in spite of himself. Taking a deep breath, he continued at a normal volume, "You know I get grumpy when I'm hungry."

"I am sure we will find somewhere we can all agree on now that we are back on the road."

"Oh, no. I'm driving. As a result, I decide where we eat, and I've decided that we're eating at the first place we find that sells food in this Godforsaken wasteland."

"If you would just allow me to drive, we would be in the civilized world that much sooner."

"Yeah, and it would take emergency services that much _longer_ to find us so they could extract our mangled bodies from the wreckage, so thanks, but no thanks."

"If you refuse to let me drive, you could at least allow me to select a radio station."

"There won't be anything but static, country and local nuts on public access." He grabbed her hand as she reached for the dial. "I said don't bother."

"Do not tell me what to do!"

Abby spoke up from the backseat, "I hate it when mom and dad fight."

Tony blinked as a series of images popped into his brain, many of them involving Ziva playing mom to him as dad in the conjugal sense, but the last thing he needed were those kind of thoughts riling him up for the next few hours. He replied with more rancor than he intended, "We're not your parents, Abs."

"I'm adopted?" she shrieked. "Is McGee adopted too? But I'm your favorite, right?"

Ziva seemed to be in the mood to play along. "We do not have fav…"

Tony cut her off, "That's it!"

"Tony…"

"No! We are gonna be stuck in this car for a long time and we are going to spend the time from here until we find somewhere to eat silently concentrating on not killing each other!"

"Aw, but…"

"Silently!" He pointed threateningly into the rearview until Abby put her earbuds back in with an exaggerated pout before hiding underneath her black parasol. He decided not to complain about the reduced visibility out of the rear window. He could feel Ziva glaring at him, but at least she was being quiet. If he could just find something to take the edge off his hunger, everything would be fine. He could apologize, laugh it off, and agree to pipe some Plastic Death off Abby's iPod through the car stereo. Well, he could apologize and laugh it off, anyway.

They had passed three generously spaced exits that just seemed to connect to other endless roads when the silence began to get unbearable. He clenched his jaw. He wasn't going to give in. _Stay strong, DiNozzo. Maintain._ He tried drumming his fingers against the wheel, but it wasn't doing the trick. A distraction was what he needed. He reached for the radio and turned it on, leaving it on the first clear signal he found, although it was just a long string of commercials.

He held back a gasp when a DJ finally sent it to the music. This was eerie. Where they'd come from and the song and…he licked his lips. He began to quietly sing along, "Jesus freaks…out in the streets…" He nudged Ziva, who rolled her eyes. "Bet you know the words," he whispered.

"You said…"

"Forget the ranting. Ziva, this is a sign. Think. Stillwater? On the bus…" When she continued to look at him uncomprehendingly, he prompted, "We watched this movie together. You were surprised I picked it because you thought it was a chick flick?" He started to get desperate; the chorus was coming up. "It was before…"

She suddenly smiled. "And you want me to…"

"Yes!"

True, he and Ziva were the only ones to burst into song, but it had the intended effect. McGee shook his head with a superior smirk at their outburst. "Hey, a sign."

"I know!" Tony happily agreed. "That's what I said to Ziva! Y'know, Cameron Crowe based…"

McGee didn't seem interested, instead asking, "You both decided to sing Elton John songs because there's a McDonald's at the next exit?"

Half an hour later, Tony sat back in the booth and surveyed the devastation before him. Ooh, there were still a couple of fries hiding under the second Big Mac box. A hand shot out and grabbed them before he could. "Hey!" Ziva swiped them through the puddle of ketchup he'd squeezed onto his McChicken wrapper before eating them. "And you wanted to look for someplace else to eat."

"I think I should have insisted on it. You may have consumed enough cholesterol to give yourself a heart attack on the walk to the car."

"Hey, I can burn all this off in one workout." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Ugh, I can't believe we've still got a three hour ride ahead of us."

"You're not going to sing the whole way, are you?" McGee asked in a worried voice, having just returned from the bathroom.

Abby perked up and stopped trying to fold her sandwich wrapper into some kind of origami thingy. "Who was singing?"

"You need to turn down the volume, Abs," Tony said, using the table to push himself to his feet. There were only two things that were going to fix the way he felt right now. He sighed and held the keys out to Ziva. "Feel like shaving some time off our trip?"

She grinned, but didn't snatch them from his hand as he'd expected. "Give me a minute to use the ladies' room."

"We'll meet you in the car." The extra time in the front seat by himself gave him a chance to discreetly unbutton his pants and hide it by zipping up his snazzy new sweater.

Ziva sank into the driver's seat a moment later and turned the key in the ignition. "Tony?"

"Yeah?"

She pushed her sunglasses up her nose and revved the engine. "Thanks for letting me drive."

He regretted it for the next hour and fifty minutes, unable to nap away his fullness. But at least no calls to emergency services were required.


End file.
